Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
She already had her phone pulled out, and all of the items listed in her Notes app.
I smiled as I walked inside behind her, my eyes automatically going to the cat that was in a hammock that was suction cupped to the window of the kitten room.
“Ohh,” I said as I walked to it.
I ran my finger along the glass and caught the cat’s attention.
He pressed his cute little paw over my pointer finger and extended his claws.
I smiled as I took in the name on his collar.
‘Rolo.’
“Perfect name for such a fat boy,” I mused.
“I thought so.” Renee came up to my side and wrapped me up in a hug. “I’m glad to see you back. I’m sorry to hear about your fur baby.”
My heart wasn’t altogether healed from his death, but it was livable now.
Then again, there’d been so many things happen that maybe I hadn’t had time to process it.
Butters still weighed heavy on my mind, but so did Daniil and John.
John was very dead, and that wasn’t going to change.
But every day that Shasha said Daniil lived, was another day that my heart got a little bit better.
Daniil was nowhere near out of the woods yet, but his prognosis was better every day—he was all there, mentally, despite taking a gunshot wound to the head. His heart and chest were also okay from taking a gunshot wound to the chest.
Needless to say, he had a very long road ahead of him, but the doctors were very happy with his progress and expected him to make a full recovery.
“Thank you,” I said. “My heart still aches.”
“It always will. Every time you think about him.” She patted my chest. “Want to come meet the cats? They’re on a terror today.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Wait, me, too!” Desi said. “I have a new rump wiggler to try out!”
We both laughed when she produced the cat bum that had a ‘tail’ that rotated around the fake cat butt.
It was cute, and probably a little bit tacky, but people didn’t care when it came to their pets.
The next few hours were spent testing out fourteen products.
Only four of them were awesome.
Seven were passable, and the rest might as well have been garbage.
After even Haze tried to make the last three work, we tossed them back in the box and played with what worked the best.
And surprisingly, the cat rump one was by far the best.
The kittens loved it.
They were everywhere, and my worry faded away in the hours that we played.
That, and I fell a little bit more in love with Desi.
It was everything.
I’m not demure. I have ADHD. Very forgetful. Very chaotic. Very anxious.
—Desi to Haze
HAZE
“I like her. A lot,” my mother said as she eyed the woman that I knew, after today, I was going to fight hard to make her my wife.
“I do, too,” Desi whispered.
“She’s great with the dogs,” my dad said.
I looked at my old man, who seemed to have aged in the week that I’d seen him, and said, “That’s a pretty big compliment coming from you.”
He grinned.
Dad was a vet.
He’d been a vet for a very long time.
Though he wasn’t a small animal veterinarian, he helped my mom out as much as he could when he had the time. Which, admittedly, wasn’t all that much.
Dad was a world-renowned horse vet that sometimes traveled around the country to follow his charges.
That was where he’d been for the last week.
He was checking over a horse that was said to possibly be the winner of this year’s Kentucky Derby.
“What happened with the horse?” I asked.
“Long fuckin’ story,” he grumbled. “One I’d rather not get into right now since I’m finally having a good day after the last couple really shitty ones. I’m sure you’ll see it in the news, anyway.”
I had a feeling I’d already seen his ‘bad day.’
I’d just been hoping that it wasn’t him that had been involved with it.
A horse had been administered the horse equivalent of speed and had died during a practice run.
It was awful, and I couldn’t believe that we lived in a world that was so shitty.
Animals were gifts, and people treated them with no respect.
I’d seen that time and time again over the years, following my parents around from an adoption event to a horse race.
“This one.” Nastya pointed at an orange kitten. “I think for sure this one.”
The little girl looked torn. “But that white one looks kind of pretty, too.”
The mother that was with the little girl snorted. “We’re not getting two, darling.”
“But Mom…”
“They actually say that you can’t have just one kitten. That they’ll be more sociable if you get two. But not from the same litter. Though I think that might’ve been dogs.” Nastya grinned sheepishly at the mother.
“Oh, a dog!” the little girl cried.
“I think I’d rather have two kittens,” the mother muttered.